“Neither the Commission nor this report is intended to make the case for or against legalization,” the report’s executive summary says. “Rather, this report serves as a resource to help the public and policymakers understand the range of policy issues and options to consider in advance of such a decision.”

‘Marijuana should not be legalized, and the best argument against legalization is what’s happening in Colorado.’Scott Chipman,
Chair of Southern California Citizens Against Legalizing Marijuana

The document (read below) contains 58 recommendations, ranging from the broad — “Focus on the public interest” — to focused analysis of tax policies, environmental impact, public safety and how the state would navigate legalization of a controlled substance illegal under federal law.

“This report offers not only a pathway to carefully crafting a thoughtful initiative but it also gives government the tools to follow up with implementation, if voters decide to legalize and regulate recreational marijuana for adult use,” Newsom said in a written statement. “If this is done right, we have an opportunity to improve the status quo by making marijuana difficult for kids to access, while limiting the unintended consequences that have characterized past ballot initiatives.”

The report points out problems with California’s current relationship with pot under “a quasi-legal medical cannabis system that is largely unregulated, untaxed and untenable.”

“Our loose regulations regarding medical cannabis serve as an invitation to recreational users to use the medical marijuana system,” it says, “but they are also an invitation for federal intervention because these regulations do not establish clearly what is and is not legal and do not adhere to enforcement guidelines set forth by the U.S. Department of Justice.”

Federal law is one aspect of recreational marijuana legalization the Blue Ribbon Commission report attempts to navigate. ‘The clear message from the current administration is that states will not be sanctioned for legalizing recreational or medical cannabis use if they work within these guidelines,’ the report says. (From Pathways Report: Policy Options for Regulating Marijuana in California)

The report cites a May poll by the Public Policy Institute of California that found 56 percent of likely voters said that marijuana should be legal. There are at least five separate ballot initiatives seeking to legalize recreational marijuana use at various stages in the process of getting on the November 2016 ballot.

“Our initiative addresses control and regulation, public health concerns, packaging, retail sales and cultivation with reasonable flexibility,” Dale Sky Jones, chairwoman of the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform, ReformCA’s parent organization, said in a written statement. “We seek to create funding mechanisms to support the regulatory and enforcement scheme, along with increased education and environmental protection. However, we do not create a tax regime with the expectation that cannabis tax revenues will be a cash cow for general government operations, nor entice the black market.”

The report cautions that California should not see potential tax revenue that legalization could generate as a windfall for the state.

“Revenue raised from marijuana taxes should be used to help further the public interest in achieving the policy goals directly associated with legalization,” it says, encouraging policymakers to “develop a highly regulated market with enforcement and oversight capacity from the beginning, not an unregulated free market; this industry should not be California’s next Gold Rush.”

While the PPIC poll notes a steady increase in support for legalization since 2012, the poll still shows only a narrow margin of support among likely voters. And there are many opponents.

“Gavin Newsom has been a supporter of legalization in the past,” Chipman said. “He wants to say this is just to try to protect us?”

Gavin Newsom in 2013. (Deborah Svoboda/KQED)

Opponents and supporters of recreational marijuana legalization — and the Blue Ribbon Commission report — point to the same source for their arguments and analysis — other states that have paved the way.

“Marijuana should not be legalized, and the best argument against legalization is what’s happening in Colorado,” Chipman said. “The black market in Colorado has not been reduced one iota.”

Jones rejected the statement.

“Let’s tiptoe back into reality real quick,” she said. “I think that there’s every indication actually that the black market goes away.”

She said Colorado’s legalization has improved public safety and public health by generating money for enforcement and allowing closet smokers to report health concerns to doctors without fear of arrest.

The Denver Post has reported extensively on Colorado’s legalization. Read stories from the one-year anniversary here, and all the newspaper’s marijuana coverage here.

Chipman said use among teens and adults is increasing in states that have legalized recreational use, and the substance causes “depression, psychosis and paranoia.”

He doesn’t think California will go the way of the rest of the West Coast and opt for legalization.

“We don’t think it’s inevitable,” he said. “Actually, we think the trend is against legalization.”

He said CALM is crafting its own ballot initiative, tentatively titled “The California Safe and Drug Free Communities Act,” which would not only reject legalized recreational pot but also seek to strengthen regulation of medical marijuana.

ReformCA’s measure will likely come out around the same time – mid-August, according to Jones. She said a lot has changed since 2010, when Proposition 19 was defeated with 53.5 percent of voters against legalizing recreational marijuana.

“Since that time, we have seen the intended and unintended consequences in these other states that have legalized,” she said. “Having this evidence of what happens when you legalize, I think that clenches it.”

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/07/22/newsoms-commission-drafts-road-map-for-regulating-recreational-pot/feed0FedsFederal law is one aspect of recreational marijuana legalization the Blue Ribbon Commission report attempts to navigate. "The clear message from the current administration is that states will not be sanctioned for legalizing recreational or medical cannabis use if they work within these guidelines," the report says.RS5309_001Gavin Newsom in 2013.BART Applying Lessons From 2013 Strike to Upcoming Transbay Closureshttp://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/07/21/bart-applying-lessons-from-2013-strike-to-upcoming-transbay-closures
http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/07/21/bart-applying-lessons-from-2013-strike-to-upcoming-transbay-closures#commentsWed, 22 Jul 2015 00:06:05 +0000http://ww2.kqed.org/news/?p=10610036No matter how they’re distributed, shifting some 100,000 BART riders to other transit systems is going to cause some headaches, delays and traffic.

So BART and other transit system authorities are encouraging commuters to stay home on the first weekends of August and September (Labor Day weekend) when, for the first time ever, train service between San Francisco and the East Bay will be halted for repairs.

‘With 100,000 transbay BART riders being displaced, there will be traffic. We encourage people to stay on their side of the bay.’Bob Franklin
BART Manager, Customer Access and Accessibility

“This is a unique opportunity,” BART spokesman Jim Allison said of the closure to replace 932 track ties and close to half a mile of rail between West Oakland Station and the Transbay Tube. “They’re going to use every second that they have, and they’re going to make sure that they get out of the way in time for the morning commute when that weekday rolls around again.”

For those who can’t abort travel plans, BART is contracting with AC Transit, Muni in San Francisco, SamTrans and Golden Gate Transit for 94 buses to carry a typical Labor Day’s worth of BART riders over the Bay Bridge.

“We assembled a public transit dream team of bus operators,” said Bob Franklin, the BART department manager in charge of organizing the tangle of agreements with other transit agencies to form the “bus bridge.”

Bay Area public transit veterans, and really anyone who tried to get around here during two strikes in 2013 that shut down the system for days, will remember it’s not the first time BART has tried to set up a bus bridge across the bay.

A map showing BART’s bus bridge planned between 19th Street Oakland Station and the Transbay Terminal in San Francisco during Aug. 1 and 2 and Sept. 5-7 repairs that will close will the Transbay Tube. (Courtesy of BART)

Bus capacity lined up for Aug. 1-2 and Sept. 5-7 is more than eight times what BART put together during the most recent strike, according to Franklin.

But that doesn’t mean the commute will be smooth. The buses, plus an anticipated 15,000 to 20,000 more vehicles crossing the Bay Bridge, are expected to snarl traffic.

“With 100,000 transbay BART riders being displaced, there will be traffic,” Franklin said. “We encourage people to stay on their side of the bay.”

Caltrans is pitching in with more toll takers and facilitating exclusive on- and off-ramps for the buses.

“What we need motorists to do is to help avoid any nonessential trips across the bridge,” he said. “If they do have to travel, we ask that they allow additional time during their travel and use alternate routes.”

Allison said crossover tracks between West Oakland Station and the Transbay Tube haven’t been used since January, when track inspectors noted many of the ties anchoring them had started to work loose.

“Should we have a major service disruption, say in the Transbay Tube or anywhere between West Oakland Station and Montgomery Street Station, the people who dispatch our trains and move train traffic around have no flexibility,” Allison said.

The crossover tracks allow trains to switch sides before dropping beneath the bay.

A sticker on a fare gate at North Berkeley BART advertises upcoming disruption to transbay train service on Aug. 1-2 and Sept. 5-7. (Dan Brekke/KQED)

“This is something that we can only do in an intense, very quick period of time,” Allison said.

The repairs, which will also include rail replacements in the Transbay Tube, are expected to cost $2 million.

The final cost of bus bridge and support staff for the closures isn’t finalized, but the BART Board of Directors is scheduled to vote Thursday on authorizing expenditures of $500,000 per day for each bus operator during the closure, plus $1 million for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which coordinates regional transportation and is deploying Caltrans and CHP for the closures, and $200,000 for city permits and other municipal-level expenses.

Franklin said he’s requesting about double what he hopes the bus bridge will cost, but BART staff need the authority to spend the extra money if something goes wrong.

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/07/21/bart-applying-lessons-from-2013-strike-to-upcoming-transbay-closures/feed2RS16097_Map.jpg-alt_295A map showing BART's "bus bridge" planned between 19th Street Oakland Station and the Transbay Terminal in San Francisco during Aug. 1 and 2 and Sept. 5-7 repairs that will close will the Transbay tube.IMG_3058A sticker on a fare gate at North Berkeley BART advertises an upcoming disruption to transbay train service on Aug. 1 and 2 and Sept. 5-7.SFPD Chief Suhr on Body Cameras: ‘What Delays?’http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/07/14/sfpd-chief-suhr-on-body-cameras-what-delays
http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/07/14/sfpd-chief-suhr-on-body-cameras-what-delays#commentsTue, 14 Jul 2015 16:57:46 +0000http://ww2.kqed.org/news/?p=10599543In May 2011, just a month after taking his post, San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr told reporters that he intended to equip his officers with body cameras. Four years later, not a single body-worn camera has been deployed in the city.

According to Suhr, the SFPD has been on the verge of launching the cameras for almost his entire tenure as chief.

In August 2013, Suhr said a pilot program was ready to launch in six weeks. In January 2014, he said that same program was now just two weeks away.

Fast forwarding to April of this year, when still no cameras had been put into use, Suhr was only slightly less definitive, telling KQED Newsroom that body cameras were “probably” going to be launched “in the next 30 days or so.”

Three months later, in an appearance on Forum this week, Suhr was asked by Michael Krasny about the four years of delays.

“There really haven’t been any delays,” Suhr answered.

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/07/14/sfpd-chief-suhr-on-body-cameras-what-delays/feed1SFPD Chief Greg Suhr Responds to Long List of Issues Facing Departmenthttp://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/07/13/sfpd-chief-greg-suhr-responds-to-long-list-of-issues-facing-department
http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/07/13/sfpd-chief-greg-suhr-responds-to-long-list-of-issues-facing-department#commentsTue, 14 Jul 2015 02:13:07 +0000http://ww2.kqed.org/news/?p=10599408The San Francisco Police Department has courted an unusual level of controversy in 2015, and whether he’s responding as department head or wrapped up in the scandal himself, Chief Greg Suhr has been at the center of it all.

“That’s just not true,” Suhr said. “The responding officers did a good investigation.”

But the case did not go beyond that initial response.

“When it came across the senior investigator’s desk for review, he or she decided that that initial investigation was all that there was, and it didn’t merit a follow investigation. … There was an investigation; there just wasn’t much to go on,” Suhr said.

Civil Settlement

This one involves Suhr himself, and his decision to fire former SFPD internal affairs attorney Kelly O’Haire quickly after he became chief of police in 2011. O’Haire asserted in a lawsuit that she was fired in retaliation for investigating allegations of misconduct against Suhr.

The San Francisco Examiner reported extensively on the lawsuit, until the city and O’Haire agreed to a $725,000 settlement on April 24. The settlement effectively ended proceedings that would have explored allegations that Suhr lied to the FBI to obtain security clearance and failed to properly report a domestic violence incident involving a friend of his who was attacked.

“I was faced with having to close a seven-figure budget gap, actually eight-figure budget gap,” Suhr said. “Ms. O’Haire was a middle manager, and one of the positions identified that was, at the time, something we could manage without. I made that decision.”

But, Suhr said, the settlement revealed “there was a fact that might have allowed Ms. O’Haire to stay on longer.”

“Hopefully this makes things right for Ms. O’Haire as well,” he said.

Amilcar Perez Lopez

Details from an independent autopsy of the 20-year-old Guatemalan immigrant, shot and killed by plainclothes SFPD officers on Feb. 26, appear to contradict Suhr’s narrative of the incident given just two days later.

Suhr said on March 2 that two plainclothes officers fired at Amilcar Perez Lopez as he charged at one of them with a knife. The autopsy, released April 24 by an attorney representing Perez Lopez’s family, found Perez Lopez was shot six time from behind.

“Mr. Lopez … came at the officers with the knife, and then the officers fired,” Suhr said. “And he turned away, which would explain not all the rounds going in the front.”

The court ordered the officers placed back on paid leave while the city and their attorneys litigate how the one-year statute of limitations for disciplining police officers should apply to the case.

Suhr first said that a court order prohibited the department from acting on evidence turned over to the Internal Affairs Division in December 2012 until the federal corruption investigation into Furminger and six other plainclothes SFPD officers was completed — and that he was “walled off” from evidence of the text messages until early 2015.

When no such court order was found to exist, Suhr referenced a federal rule of criminal procedure that keeps parts of criminal grand jury proceedings secret.

“As the criminal case was proceeding,” Suhr said Monday, “the officers were basically sworn or had an understanding with the U.S. Attorney’s Office that whatever came under their information as cooperating investigators in this case, they were not to cross over and tell people on the administrative side, which would have been me or other higher-ups in the Police Department.”

Suhr has cited a provision of the California Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights that “tolls,” or pauses the statute of limitations, if an officer is the subject of a criminal investigation. But the officers argue the texts in question were incidental to a criminal investigation, not part of it.

They’ve convinced a Superior Court judge to at least hear their case, and the court stayed any disciplinary actions against the officers until the issue is tried. The officers were placed back on paid administrative leave in May.

Theft and Disparity, Death and Staffing

Suhr said SFPD’s current sworn staffing — some 300 officers below the minimum 1,971 defined in the City Charter — is affecting response times, even for calls about potential violence or crimes in progress, which are the department’s highest priority.

“It takes about 45 seconds to a minute longer than it used to even on the A priority calls,” Suhr said. “The good news is all those cops are coming back.”

The department plans to graduate five new police academy classes over the coming year, and three more next year.

Despite the short staff, shootings and homicides have both been halved since 2008, Suhr said, but certain districts in the city — particularly those with minority communities — haven’t seen it.

“There’s also sadly a disproportionate amount of violent crime that occurs in these same neighborhoods,” Suhr said. “Almost 50 percent of the homicides this year, even though homicides are again lower than what they were dramatically from 2007 and 2008, disproportionately affecting African-American men.”

Factoring the estimate that African-Americans make up about 6 percent of San Francisco’s population, Suhr said African-Americans are about eight times more likely to be victims of homicide than other races in the city.

Property crimes, which are up throughout the state, are also climbing in San Francisco.

“We’ve seen a significant rise in auto burglaries, to the tune of well over 50 percent, a lot of property crime,” he said.

Recent reports have solidified San Francisco’s dubious distinction as having one of the widest racially disparate criminal justice systems in the state, with African-Americans about seven times more likely to be arrested than white people in the city.

Suhr said a recent tracking effort by the department shows the race of arrested suspects almost always matches the description given by victims or witnesses to the crime.

“I think a lot of people figure officers just go out and arrest who they just feel like arresting and we have this disproportionality, and that’s just not the case,” he said. “The officers go and talk to, when it comes to victim crimes, who the victim describes as the possible suspect, and the officers talk to those folks.”

He’s angling for the seat of Sen. Mark Leno, a fellow Democrat who will term out of representing the district that includes San Francisco and northern San Mateo County. Leno is among a list of endorsements that Wiener included in his campaign announcement.

“The state is growing, the region is growing, San Francisco is growing,” Wiener said, “and we need to keep up and make sure that we are sustainable for the long run. That’s the work that I’ve done on the Board of Supervisors, and if the voters send me to Sacramento, I’ll do that work there and focus on those core sustainability issues.”

KQED asked Wiener about his priorities as he launches his campaign.

Housing

“San Francisco can’t solve our housing problems on our own. We need to be working with the region as a whole, and the state has a role to play in encouraging smart growth and also funding for affordable housing.”

Your critics say you’re someone firmly in the pro-development camp. How do you respond?

“I’m pro-housing. I’m pro-affordable housing, I’m pro-keeping people stable in the housing that they have. And my record has been a long one of supporting smart housing policies that both protect people in their housing, but also make sure that we’re creating enough housing, including affordable housing for our growing population. If your population is growing as quickly as ours is — 10,000 a year in San Francisco, the Bay Area is going to grow by 2 million people in the next 25 years — you need to create housing for that growing population. And if you don’t, you’re going to wind up with the situation we’re in today with $3,000 and $4,000 average rents.”

Are short-term rentals, like those from Airbnb, taking housing units off the market?

“I think you have to distinguish between the two types of short-term rentals. I completely agree that when you have entire housing units that are taken off the market and turned into short-term rentals, where there’s no resident actually living there, that is abusive, it is illegal, it should be illegal, and we should be cracking down on it, hard.

“But the other situation is where you have residents who live in their homes and live there all year-round and may have lived there for many, many years, and they have a spare bedroom that they rent out as a short-term rental. That income is allowing them to pay their mortgage, to put a new roof on their house, to send the kid to college, to pay their health bills. And the last thing that we should be doing is preventing those people from being able to make ends meet in this expensive city.”

But the city’s Planning Department has said San Francisco’s current law regulating short-term rentals is unenforceable.

“This ordinance is enforceable. I’m not saying that it’s easy to enforce. I’m not saying it’s airtight enforcement. It is enforceable. The Planning Department right now is enforcing against some of the abusive actors, and I applaud them for doing that. I think we should give this a chance to work. I’m open to changes to the legislation to make it even better, and particularly to improve enforcement. What I will not support is preventing people who live in their homes and renting spare rooms to make ends meet — I won’t support legislation that’s going to really harm those long-term San Francisco residents.”

Transportation

“We have huge transportation challenges locally and throughout the state as we continue to grow, and so in Sacramento I will be working on solutions to increase investment, particularly in public transportation. We need much more state support for our transit systems, whether it’s building a second Transbay Tube, making sure we extend high-speed rail and Caltrain to downtown San Francisco, and just making sure we are keeping up with our population growth. That will be a major focus for me.”

Water

“Even if it starts raining again next winter, we need to continue to reform how we approach water, and that will be a major focus for me. I recently authored first-of-its-kind legislation to require water recycling in new developments. I want to focus on water recycling in particular, but water policy in general in Sacramento.”

LGBT Issues and Politics

Has the nature of LGBT politics changed?

“Yes and no: We’ve achieved some amazing successes as an LGBT community. The Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality only being the most recent. Societal attitudes towards LGBT people have shifted in a very positive direction, and we have a lot to celebrate. But the shift, I think, is about the types of issues that we’re facing as a community. We still do not have a comprehensive federal civil rights law protecting LGBT people. In many states you can be still fired from your job for being LGBT. Even if you have marriage rights, you can be evicted from your apartment for being LGBT, and we need those basic protections.

“We also are just starting to grapple with the needs of LGBT seniors. For a long time — especially with gay men — a lot of people weren’t making it to old age because of the HIV epidemic. We are now seeing a growing LGBT senior population. That is a beautiful thing, but we have yet to fully grapple with what it means to have a growing population of 70-year-olds and 80-year-olds who are long-term HIV survivors, what it means to have more and more LGBT people in long-term care facilities. We have yet to grapple fully with what it means to have a growing population of seniors who don’t have adult children to help take care of them.”

Policing

“There has to be trust between the police and the community. The police play such a critical role in keeping our communities safe, and that trust is a key ingredient. Without trust it’s very hard to have effective law enforcement.

“The San Francisco Police Department — it has had its scandals. The texting situation was just disgusting, and I’m glad that the chief is taking firm action against those officers. But let’s be clear, in many ways San Francisco is one of the most progressive police departments in the country. … It is a department that does a lot of things right, but there’s always room for improvement. And statewide, I know that there are a lot of departments that could use help in terms of fostering more trust.”

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/07/01/s-f-supervisor-scott-wiener-announces-state-senate-candidacy/feed0Juvenile Who Lit Agender Teen on Fire Gets Reduced Sentencehttp://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/06/29/juvenile-who-lit-agender-teen-on-fire-gets-reduced-sentence
http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/06/29/juvenile-who-lit-agender-teen-on-fire-gets-reduced-sentence#commentsTue, 30 Jun 2015 01:12:05 +0000http://ww2.kqed.org/news/?p=10582017An Oakland 17-year-old convicted last year of setting a sleeping teenager’s dress ablaze on an AC Transit bus received a reduced sentence in Alameda County Superior Court on Monday that will likely allow him to serve his whole term in juvenile detention.

Richard Thomas pleaded no contest to felony assault in October. His original seven-year sentence included an enhancement for inflicting great bodily injury on Sasha Fleischman, who suffered second- and third-degree burns to the legs in the Oakland attack on Nov. 4, 2013.

The case drew attention as a potential hate crime because Sasha identifies as agender — neither male nor female — and the fact that Thomas told police he was “homophobic.” His attorney said Thomas was confused in the interview and meant to say “heterosexual.”

The New York Times Magazine detailed the investigators’ interview with Richard, as well as other broad issues raised by the case:

Oakland is one of America’s most diverse cities. We pride ourselves on our tolerance; this is, after all, the Bay Area. Yet for all its laid-back inclusiveness, Oakland is also a city of grim contrasts. The wealthier hills neighborhoods have good schools, low crime and views of the bay. The historic buildings downtown are filling with tech start-ups, boutiques peddling handmade jeans and nightspots with seven-ingredient cocktails. But little of this good fortune has spilled over into East Oakland, where Richard lived, a region of grinding poverty and chronic violence. Richard and Sasha lived in the same city, but their paths might never have crossed if they didn’t both ride the 57 bus.

The potential hate-crime sentence enhancements were eventually dropped in the plea deal, but Thomas still faced a sentence that would have kept him incarcerated beyond his 21st birthday, meaning he was looking at transferring to adult prison sometime next week, after he turns 18, said defense attorney William Du Bois.

But Fleischman’s parents advocated for an alternative punishment for Thomas, who was 16 at the time of the assault.

“A 16-year-old’s actions — however severe the results — don’t have any place in the adult judicial system,” said Debbie Crandall, Fleischman’s mother, after the plea agreement was announced.

Du Bois said Sasha Fleischman’s father Karl Fleischman read a statement to the Court Monday on behalf of the entire family in support of the shorter sentence.

“It was an amazing show of courage by them to take this position,” Du Bois said.

The court received positive reports from the Department of Juvenile Justice, according to Du Bois and the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, and Judge Paul Delucchi resentenced Thomas to five years’ confinement.

“I think he wants to improve himself in every way he can,” Du Bois said. “I think he wants to educate himself. One of the things this case has taught him is the value of education and the devastation wrought by ignorance.”

Dropping two years off the term means Thomas could be released in June 2018, prosecutors said, weeks before his 21st birthday, and he will not have to transfer to the adult corrections system.

“There was a lot of thought, care and consideration that went into this negotiated disposition,” said Teresa Drenick, an Alameda County assistant district attorney and spokeswoman for the DA’s office.

“That includes taking into consideration the age of the defendant, the severity of the crime, the input of the victim and the victim’s family, and our — the DA’s — responsibility to ensure the safety of the community,” Drenick said.

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/06/29/juvenile-who-lit-agender-teen-on-fire-gets-reduced-sentence/feed1Poll: Housing Scarcity Concerns Surpass Water Worries in San Franciscohttp://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/06/25/poll-housing-scarcity-concerns-surpass-water-worries-in-san-francisco
http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/06/25/poll-housing-scarcity-concerns-surpass-water-worries-in-san-francisco#commentsFri, 26 Jun 2015 00:54:03 +0000http://ww2.kqed.org/news/?p=10577128A poll released Thursday by a business-backed policy organization found more than three-quarters of Bay Area residents support building more low- to middle-income housing, and a growing number of people favor greater density in their neighborhoods if it would create more places to live.

In San Francisco, the epicenter of housing concern for the whole Bay Area, finding an affordable place to live ranked higher than worries about California’s extreme drought in the 2015 Bay Area Council Poll.

“Water isn’t the only thing that’s in short supply in the Bay Area,” Bay Area Council President Jim Wunderman wrote in a statement. “We need a bold regional response to our historic housing crisis that is on par with the aggressive and immediate action we’re taking to combat the drought.”

Water worries surpassed housing concerns in every other corner of the Bay Area — but not, the Bay Area Council points out, if you combine housing and cost of living. It’s worth noting that lawn-scarce San Francisco has already met state-mandated water conservation goals and is taking steps to use even less water.

The Bay Area Council’s poll included an interactive map that asked respondents to click where they thought new housing is most needed. (Courtesy of EMC Research)

“It’s pervasive,” said Matt Regan, a Bay Area Council senior vice president of public policy who focuses on housing issues. “The housing crisis that we currently find ourselves in is impacting every family across economic spectrums.”

He said it was a first to find that half of Bay Area residents support new housing construction, even if it increases the density of their cities. Support for new housing with greater density was higher in Santa Clara (56 percent), Alameda (55 percent) and San Francisco (53 percent) counties. An even larger majority — 61 percent — of San Franciscans said they’d accept new housing in their neighborhood.

“That’s a new phenomenon for us,” Regan said. “People are saying things they’ve never said before about welcoming new development in their neighborhoods.”

Thursday’s release was a drill-down into housing-related responses and part of the Bay Area Council’s yearly poll. Oakland-based EMC Research administered the online survey of 1,000 adults, all residents of the nine-county Bay Area. Respondents were fairly evenly represented across income levels, and most live in Santa Clara, Alameda and San Francisco counties.

The Bay Area Council also asked questions about reducing state and local regulations that could “hasten new housing,” according to the group’s press release. The poll noted growing support for reducing local building regulations and fees, and reforming state-level environmental impact regulations.

New support for increased density wasn’t particularly surprising to Peter Cohen, who co-chairs the San Francisco Council of Community Housing Organizations.

“I’m not surprised at all that folks are interested in a more urbanistic environment, even in their own neighborhoods,” he said. “I’m not surprised at all that people want low- and middle-income housing, but that does not mean the answer is to strip away regulation and let the free market run its course. That’s not what this is saying.”

Cohen pointed out a question in the poll that asked whether people would support making it “easier to build housing while still maintaining environmental protections.”

“That makes it seem like you can have your cake and eat it, too,” he said. “How do you do that? There’s no answer. It just sounds good.”

Regan said low- and middle-income housing — far below San Francisco’s market rates — is a “doughnut hole” in the region’s housing policy.

“There is funding for very low-income homes, and the market rate housing will obviously take care of itself,” he said.

But what Regan called “workforce housing,” for teachers and firefighters, has slipped through the cracks.

“That’s the most difficult to finance,” he said, “and that’s where the respondents of the poll have said we need to focus our attention.”

Regan said the poll shows growing support for deregulation, so housing can be built for people at all income levels.

Cohen, however, sees the opposite, and believes San Francisco needs more regulation to control short-term rentals (like Airbnb), and stem evictions from rent-controlled properties in favor of market-rate condo conversions. He said the city’s regulations, like rent control, have encouraged diversity and “created the place where everybody wants to be.”

“You can’t strip all that away and diminish the role of public policy and government, and still have a place that’s made San Francisco the place that it is,” he said.

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/06/25/poll-housing-scarcity-concerns-surpass-water-worries-in-san-francisco/feed2Epicenter Map_fixThe Bay Area Council's poll included an interactive map that asked respondents to click where they thought new housing is most needed.San Francisco Stolen Car Towing Fees Would Drop Under New Proposalhttp://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/06/24/san-francisco-stolen-car-towing-fees-would-drop-under-new-proposal
http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/06/24/san-francisco-stolen-car-towing-fees-would-drop-under-new-proposal#commentsThu, 25 Jun 2015 00:33:29 +0000http://ww2.kqed.org/news/?p=10575736Some insult could drop off the injury of having a car stolen and then recovered in San Francisco, under a new tow fee scheme before the city’s Board of Supervisors.

The city’s current system allows a car-theft victim 20 minutes to get his or her car from the street where police find it. If they can’t get there, car owners are charged close to $500, according to Paul Rose, spokesman for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. That charge includes a $263 SFMTA towing fee and a $220.75 contractor’s towing fee.

Then, the unfortunate theft victim gets a four-hour window before the contractor’s storage fee starts charging — that’s $57.25 for the first day and $66.75 for each day after that.

“You’re already victimized once when your car is stolen, and then to be effectively victimized again, it just struck me as unfair,” said the proposal’s author, Supervisor Scott Wiener. “It’s also an economic justice issue because for people who are lower income, their car might be their lifeline to get to work, and if they can’t afford to get their car out of the towing yard, that’s a huge hardship.”

“The cost of doing business is more expensive in San Francisco,” Wiener said, citing high labor and rent costs for the city’s towing vendor, Auto Return. “It’s not surprising that there are higher costs, which leads to higher charges. We should always be looking at ways that we can have a system that has enough of a disincentive so that people avoid having their cars towed, but isn’t punitive.”

Enter the less punitive scheme before the Board of Supervisors. The proposed eight-month extension to the city’s contract with Auto Return would waive all of the initial fees for San Francisco residents. Residents of other cities, who may have had their cars stolen elsewhere and dumped in San Francisco, would pay just $133 — half of the city’s towing fee — and the rest would be waived.

Residents of the city would get a full 48-hour grace period before the new $68.25 daily fee would start to accrue, and nonresidents would get 24 hours.

“I would ideally like to see the window a little bit longer, a little bit more relief,” Wiener said, “but there are also revenue impacts to our transportation agency when we reduce fees, and so we’re trying to balance that.”

Rose said the SFMTA expected to lose between $200,000 and $300,000 over the proposed eight-month contract extension — not a huge hit for the agency’s approximately $1 billion budget.

“We will have to work to cover those costs, but it is something that we are working with the Board of Supervisors and Auto Return to implement,” he said.

A spokeswoman with the San Francisco Transit Riders Union said the group is generally against reductions to the MTA’s budget that favor car owners, but the group does not know enough about the proposal to comment on it directly.

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/06/24/san-francisco-stolen-car-towing-fees-would-drop-under-new-proposal/feed1mini_tow2Court to Hear SFPD Racist Texting Case, Officers Back on Paid Leavehttp://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/06/22/court-to-hear-sfpd-racist-texting-case-officers-back-on-paid-leave
http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/06/22/court-to-hear-sfpd-racist-texting-case-officers-back-on-paid-leave#commentsTue, 23 Jun 2015 01:25:12 +0000http://ww2.kqed.org/news/?p=10573322Nine San Francisco police officers facing various levels of discipline for their involvement in a bigoted text messages scandal will remain on paid leave while their petition to halt the city’s action against them makes its way through San Francisco Superior Court, a judge ordered Monday.

The San Francisco Police Commission had started preliminary hearings to determine whether the city would be violating a 1-year statute of limitations by punishing the officers, several of whom faced being fired, according to one of their attorneys.

But Officer Rain Daugherty and eight others petitioned the court May 12 to halt the Police Commission proceedings. Their petition argues that the Police Department was in possession of the text messages since late 2012, but did not investigate them until early 2015.

Deputy City Attorney Kenneth Walczak said the court was “reaching down to a commission and usurping jurisdiction.” He said the court should have waited until the Police Commission imposed any discipline before hearing the case.

“It’s the wrong time,” he argued before Judge Ernest Goldsmith, “too late to have avoided the Commission’s exercise of jurisdiction and too early for the Commission to have imposed discipline.”

The San Francisco Examiner reported last week that officers who were suspended had been back on paid leave since May 18, when Goldsmith granted a temporary stay of Police Commission proceedings. He extended that stay Monday until the statute of limitations issue is settled.

The court won’t be deciding anything about who sent which text or whether the content of any message betrayed character unfit for that of a police officer. Instead, this case centers on whether the officers can even be disciplined in 2015 for conduct discovered in 2012.

The city argues the 1-year time limit for police discipline under state law “tolled,” or paused, while a federal investigation that uncovered the texts was underway. But the city has yet to produce evidence that police officials were barred from acting.

Attorney Alison Berry Wilkinson, who represents Daugherty, said the Superior Court will give her tools unavailable before the Police Commission.

“We are dependent upon the Police Department for the information it gathered and is willing to share with us in the Police Commission forum,” she told reporters outside the courtroom. “In the Superior Court, we have the access to subpoenas, depositions and other mechanisms that will give us a greater picture of what actually happened than the narrow one the Police Department wants us to see.”

Wilkinson said she will seek documentation from the Northern California U.S. Attorney’s Office and others in an effort to “establish the specific date on which the city obtained the text messages at issue, as well as who knew what when and why did they not start the investigation sooner.”

Judge Ernest Goldsmith also ordered that any filing in the case that could disclose the officers’ disciplinary records or other protected personnel information be filed under seal. The judge denied without prejudice — meaning the issue could be revisited — the officers’ request that court proceedings be closed to the public.

Walczak said the secrecy of the court filings could be an inappropriate restriction on freedom of the press.

Coming from the city, that argument held little sway with Goldsmith, who asked, “This is all about freedom of information? Is that it?”

“One could invoke — I’m not sure if it’s a legal principle, but — what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,” he said from the bench. “Usually it’s the city that’s invoking this, that everything is confidential regarding peace officers.”

In a written statement, the City Attorney’s Office expressed disappointment at “the unprecedented step of staying and assuming control over a Police Commission disciplinary proceeding, which was already underway.”

When Greg Suhr took command of the San Francisco Police Department in April 2011, he had a scandal on his hands.

The city’s public defender, Jeff Adachi, had released surveillance video that, among other things, caught plainclothes San Francisco police officers in the act of illegally searching a room in a single-resident-occupancy hotel on a gritty part of Sixth Street, just south of Market. That video and others led to the indictment of half a dozen officers on a variety of corruption charges; four were convicted.

“We have no room in the department for dishonest cops,” Suhr said when he was sworn in, referring to the case.

But Adachi kept releasing incriminating video footage, prompting Suhr to announce he wanted to equip officers with body cameras to record searches. That statement — on May 17, 2011 — was Suhr’s first mention of a plan that eventually became a body camera pilot program.

Over the four years since then, Suhr has repeatedly promised that the department was very close to outfitting 50 plainclothes officers with the devices.

But the department didn’t actually buy any cameras until December 2014. And the pilot program never launched.

Instead, on April 30, Mayor Ed Lee, with Suhr at his side, announced that the city would spend more than $6 million to buy body cameras for the entire police department.

While other police departments around the country have extensively tested and deployed body cameras since Suhr first announced his plan, the San Francisco Police Department remains several months away from equipping its officers with the devices.

A KQED investigation found the department spent nine months obtaining a sole-source waiver allowing it to purchase cameras from Taser International, without considering other bids. Documents and interviews with top police officials reveal that the department requested a no-bid contract after field-testing only Taser cameras.

After receiving the waiver, another 14 months passed before the department signed a deal with the company.

And although Suhr and other department leaders made reference to it on multiple occasions, the department never provided a policy governing the use of the cameras to the city’s Police Commission. SFPD has cited multiple exemptions in open records law in an effort to keep its draft policy from the public — including that the document would reveal secret investigative techniques or procedures, and that as a draft, the policy need not be released.

“SFPD recently chose to forego the pilot program and instead proceed with implementing body-worn cameras department-wide,” the City Attorney’s Office wrote in a response to KQED’s petition to force the policy’s release. “The documents do not contain factual information, but are policy and planning recommendations that the department never carried out.”

A police officer in West Valley City Utah presses a button on his Taser Axon Flex controller to start recording. The department bought 190 systems in March. (George Frey/Getty Images)

The city attorney determined documents related to the “abandoned proposed pilot program” are of limited public interest and exempt from disclosure.

But the department’s handling of the pilot program has raised questions about its commitment to deploying cameras and its relationship with Taser as it prepares to spend millions on new cameras.

Police Commissioner Petra DeJesus said she has been contacted by other camera manufacturers asking whether the city would request bids for its next purchase. She said she didn’t know about the no-bid contract with Taser until KQED showed her the sole-source waiver. She asked about the department’s deal with Taser at last week’s Police Commission meeting.

“The cameras did go out to bid,” Suhr said at that meeting. “Taser won that bid.”

When DeJesus pressed Suhr on whether the department had received “an exception to go with one vendor” for the pilot program, the police chief said he would “look into that,” but it was his recollection that Taser International “came in low bid.”

Documents obtained by KQED show that Suhr himself requested and received a waiver from the U.S. Department of Justice, which funded the program, in April 2013. He also signed a similar request to the city’s Office of Contract Administration, allowing the department to purchase cameras from Taser without considering other bids. The OCA granted that request in September 2013.

Supervisor John Avalos says he is concerned the purchase could pave the way for a much larger no-bid contract with Taser. Suhr told the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee Wednesday that the next purchase would go out to bid.

The department’s deal with Taser included three years of a free subscription to its cloud-based data storage system, Evidence.com. But department leaders continued to raise concerns about the cost of storage for the pilot program after the deal was signed and the cameras were purchased.

As NPR recently reported, that’s in line with Taser’s shift to a focus on recurring subscription payments rather than one-off equipment sales.

“I think it will look more like your cable bill,” equity analyst Glenn Mattson told NPR. “A lot of times you get a pretty nice deal to get a cable subscription, you know, and then that introductory rate gets raised over time.”

SFPD’s pilot purchase from Taser is just the most recent chapter in a long effort to secure the department’s business, with a succession of police chiefs in the company’s corner.

‘How do we make certain that we have the most secure, economically feasible way of storing this data? Axon had it. No one else had it at the time.’Mikail Ali
SFPD Deputy Chief

Taser, best known as the maker of electronic “stun guns,” had been angling to get the city’s business for more than a decade.

San Francisco’s last four chiefs of police — Heather Fong, George Gascón, interim Chief Jeff Godown and Suhr — all tried to win approval from the city’s Police Commission to equip officers with the Taser weapons. But public opposition killed the proposal each time.

“They’ve marketed very aggressively to the SFPD,” former police commissioner Angela Chan said. “At one point, Taser International was even presenting to the Police Commission. Their presentation was clearly a commercial presentation.”

Taser’s executive vice president of global sales said San Francisco is one of only three major U.S. cities that doesn’t equip police with the company’s stun guns. Josh Isner said winning the pilot body camera contract is a point of pride for the Taser.

“In San Francisco, we weren’t an incumbent vendor,” Isner said, “and we still were awarded the contract there. We really haven’t had any type of relationship with the City of San Francisco, any type of procurement relationship, before interest in the body cams came out.”

Suhr announced he was dropping his attempt to deploy the stun guns in early April 2013. But at the same time, documents obtained through a Public Records Act request show, the chief was pursuing a no-bid contract with Taser to obtain the company’s Axon Flex body cameras and Evidence.com subscription.

On April 4, 2013, Suhr wrote a letter to the Justice Department requesting a waiver that would allow the Police Department to use $250,000 from a federal law-enforcement technology grant to buy wearable cameras from Taser without requesting bids from other manufacturers.

Suhr wrote that the department had begun researching wearable cameras in May 2012 — a full year after he first publicly suggested SFPD would use them. After reviewing a study by the Modesto Police Department and field testing cameras from Taser and one competitor, Vievu, he wrote:

“We believe that it is in the best interest of the San Francisco Police Department to purchase both the Axon camera systems and Evidence.com evidence managers from Taser International as sole source procurements.”

San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr recently said he thought Taser had submitted the “low bid” for the department’s body camera pilot program. He also said the city would request bids for the pending, much larger purchase. (Deborah Svoboda/KQED)

An SFPD official said the field testing Suhr referred to consisted of using two camera systems from Taser for about six weeks. Deputy Chief Mikail Ali said the Vievu assessment consisted of little more than looking at the camera since the department lacked the needed computer software and hardware to fully test it.

The research by the Modesto Police Department, also mentioned by Suhr, appears to have been much more thorough than what the SFPD undertook. In requesting its own waiver for a no-bid contract for 158 Axon Flex cameras in 2012, the Modesto police explained the force had tested cameras from four different makers over a period of 13 months.

The department concluded that Taser’s Axon Flex system and its customer service were superior to offerings from competitors, though a report provided to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department also noted problems with the Taser system. Officers experienced sporadic problems with the system’s functioning and lost some evidence, the document says, and some complained that the wires the device uses were too fragile.

The Justice Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services approved Suhr’s request to spend federal grant money on a no-bid purchase from Taser — with the caveat that the SFPD should also follow local contract and purchasing laws. The San Francisco Office of Contract Administration granted the department’s sole-source waiver in September 2013, citing the federal government’s approval.

By that time, the department was already negotiating with Taser to buy cameras, and Suhr was promising that a pilot body camera program was imminent.

Documents show that the company submitted a quote to the Police Department in June 2013. The heavily discounted total for a camera system and data storage totaled just under $350,000 — but substantially more than the $250,000 the department was talking about spending.

In August 2013, Suhr said the department would begin equipping 50 plainclothes officers with wearable video cameras “within the next six weeks.”

In January 2014, responding to an incident in which plainclothes officers were accused of beating a teenager who had been stopped for riding his bike on the sidewalk in the Valencia Gardens housing project, Suhr said the pilot program was just two weeks away.

But despite Suhr’s pledges, documents show the city was nowhere near buying the cameras the chief said it was about to deploy.

Through the early months of 2014, staffers in the Police Department and the city’s Office of Contract Administration exchanged emails about the status of the project.

“Taser International has expressed a willingness to address any concerns we may have with cost, terms and conditions,” SFPD Commander Mikail Ali wrote in a March 17, 2014 email. “They have a [sic] implementation team on standby waiting to come to our city upon execution of an agreement.”

Ali, whom Suhr had called his “gadget guy” and who has since been promoted to deputy chief, oversaw planning for the pilot program through late 2014. His replacement, Commander Bob Moser, declined multiple interview requests from KQED. The Police Department provided email correspondence addressed to Moser, but no responses or any other documents written by him.

After no apparent movement on the purchase, Taser last September came up with a new quote — for 165 Axon Flex cameras, support equipment, software and three years of free data storage — that fell within the Police Department’s $250,000 budget, though the department would still have to pay out of pocket for staff to administer the program.

SFPD agreed to that deal, and in December the city paid Taser $249,623.69. The cameras have yet to be deployed, however, as the department and Police Commission continue work on a policy to govern how the devices are to be used.

That policy will be crucial as the department weighs the purchase of 1,600 to 1,800 cameras to equip all of its officers. The initial price tag for a camera system is just the beginning of what the city will pay. At a Board of Supervisors hearing last October, Deputy Police Chief Sharon Ferrigno estimated the five-year cost of equipping all officers would be more than $21 million.

The major costs of the program include the cost of storing the massive amount of video the cameras record as well as the new personnel the department will need to handle the video.

The $6 million budget item Mayor Lee announced in April would cover just the first two years of the department-wide body camera program.

At the mayor’s announcement, Suhr declined to say who would supply the cameras the department needs.

“We are San Francisco, so we’re going to figure out whether or not we have to go out to bid for cameras or if we can go with the cameras that we were going to use already,” Suhr said. “But we’ll do it right so there’s no question that it wasn’t done right.”

Avalos, who called the board hearing on the cameras last fall, says whether the department will request bids for the expected camera purchase “shouldn’t even be a question.”

“The bidding process provides the opportunity for competition,” Avalos said, adding that issuing a request for proposals would invite any company that was interested to present their products’ capabilities — and give the city price quotes.

Supervisor John Avalos says he was alarmed to find out the police department was pursuing a no-bid contract for Taser body cameras at the same time the city was debating buying Taser “stun guns.” (Sara Bloomberg/KQED)

He said issuing a bid request is “standard practice” and that should be the process followed for this multimillion dollar purchase.

“That’s a huge contract that I would not feel comfortable ever supporting without there being a competitive bid,” Avalos said. “But if Taser has created its own relationship and got its foot in the door … I would be alarmed and definitely would not want to move forward with anything that appears to be a sole-source contract.”

If the SFPD won’t pursue another sole-source contract with Taser, as Suhr indicated Wednesday, that’s a decision that was made recently.

Deputy Chief Ali said June 5 that it was yet to be determined whether the city would open up the bidding process, a decision that would ultimately be up to the city’s Office of Contract Administration.

“I won’t put the cart before the horse,” he said. “Those discussions are underway, and we’ll just have to see where they go.”

The Office of Contract Administration did not respond to repeated requests for an interview, nor did that office respond to KQED’s Public Records Act request. A representative said the office had given responsive documents to the Police Department.

Taser Executive Vice President Josh Isner said the decision to sole source or request bids is up to the police department and the city, and Taser is “happy to compete in either way.”

“As a public company, we can’t say too much about ongoing negotiations and forward facing information regarding deals,” Isner said. “It’d be a safe assumption to say — the fact that they already have our product — we’re certainly hoping to win the business for more of that same product.”

Suhr and other senior commanders have said that Taser’s offerings can’t be matched by the growing number of competing — and often cheaper — systems on the market.

Among the features the SFPD has cited are cloud storage of the massive amounts of data (which is available from other vendors) and the Taser Evidence.com system’s ability to obscure portions of video images to protect the identity of witnesses.

Ali said that given the department’s limited information technology capabilities, Taser’s cloud-based digital storage system made its product the only feasible choice for the city when it was shopping for cameras.

“How do we make certain that we have the most secure, economically feasible way of storing this data?” he said. “Axon had it. No one else had it at the time.”

Ali said the department had intended to field test Vievu cameras, but lacked the technology Vievu’s product required.

“We did not have that capacity to even test them beyond just looking at them physically,” he said. “We just didn’t have the physical capacity to do it because we had no means of storing it on a server in- house.”

Taser is one of a few leading suppliers of body-worn cameras, but its sales tactics have recently come under scrutiny.

An Associated Press investigation earlier this year found the company has aggressively courted local police chiefs in an effort to win the same kind of deal the company pursued with San Francisco — a no-bid contract where the competition never gets a chance to demonstrate its products or quote prices.

Taser has also come under fire for hiring recently retired police chiefs with whom it has done business. The company announced in April it would change the practice after a New Mexico state audit blasted the hiring of the former police chief of Albuquerque while he was still on the city’s payroll. From now on, Taser said, it will wait a year before hiring retired police officials.

Isner confirmed that policy, and said the company has never had any similar relationship with anyone who works or has worked for the SFPD. He said Taser does focus on major cities like San Francisco.

“They represent a large portion of the policing market both in numbers and in thought leadership,” he said, “and San Francisco does fall into that category.”

Taser has become a dominant player despite the presence of competitors who say their body camera systems match Taser’s in quality while selling for a fraction of Taser’s price.

Peter Onruang, founder of Los Angeles-based Wolfcom Enterprises, says his firm is constantly outmaneuvered by Taser, often before getting a chance to bid. He said he’s hopeful San Francisco will allow Wolfcom to demonstrate its cameras, cloud-based storage system, and quote a price.

“You don’t know how frustrating it is to be the David versus Taser’s Goliath,” he said.

KQED’s Mia Zuckerkandel and Dan Brekke contributed to this report.

This report was updated Friday, June 19, to include responses from Taser International.

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/06/18/the-story-behind-the-sfpd-body-cam-programs-many-delays/feed0RS15596_GettyImages-464977016-qutA police officer in West Valley City Utah presses a button on his Taser Axon Flex controller to start recording. The department bought 190 systems in March.RS4883_010.jpg-alt_285San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr recently said he thought Taser had submitted the "low bid" for the department's body camera pilot program. He also said the city would request bids for the pending, much larger purchase.RS7248_Homelessness_Parks_29oct2013_0045_webSupervisor John Avalos says he was alarmed to find out the police department was pursuing a no-bid contract for Taser body cameras at the same time the city was debating buying Taser "stun guns."Oakland Police Recruits Training in S.F. as Both Cities Make Hiring Pushhttp://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/06/11/oakland-police-recruits-training-in-s-f-as-both-cities-make-hiring-push
http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/06/11/oakland-police-recruits-training-in-s-f-as-both-cities-make-hiring-push#commentsFri, 12 Jun 2015 00:59:04 +0000http://ww2.kqed.org/news/?p=10559449For the first time ever, Oakland police recruits are attending San Francisco’s police academy. It’s a change San Francisco’s police chief hopes will foster collaboration between the neighboring cities’ police forces.

“It goes a long way to really fostering a regional partnership with another agency,” San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr told the city’s Police Commission Wednesday night.

He said Oakland is paying for the five recruits.

“I believe the relationship that will be formed between these recruits will carry them through their career, ” Suhr said, “and as they go back to Oakland and ours stay here, we will have a person-to-person relationship ongoing with an agency where we are just a bridge apart.”

Suhr’s announcement came on the heels of a San Francisco Controller’s Office report published Wednesday afternoon that found a significant slip in SFPD’s staffing levels, down to about 1,700 sworn field officers.

The controller’s report found San Francisco and Oakland are behind several comparable cities in the ratio of police to residents. Specifically, when San Francisco’s population nearly doubles during the day, there are about 200 officers for every 100,000 people. In Oakland, the ratio is 164 officers for every 100,000 people.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports two city supervisors are calling for SFPD’s minimum staffing level to rise to 2,200 from the current 1,971 — to be paid for from the city’s general fund. Supervisors Scott Wiener and Malia Cohen cite a recent jump in property crime cataloged by the Controller’s Office.

From the Chronicle’s Vivan Ho:

The move comes at a time when property crimes are on the rise, according to police figures. The number of property crimes reported in San Francisco increased by 39 percent from 2010 to 2014, with 32,521 reported in 2010 and 45,334 in 2014.

But while officials in many Bay Area cities have linked depleted police forces to the ups and downs of crime rates — including San Jose, Oakland and Vallejo — studies have been mixed on whether more officers means less crime. And police critics say cities around the region are putting too much of their tax revenue into cops.

Wiener and Cohen’s proposal will be heard by the city’s Land Use and Transportation Committee Monday.

Meanwhile, San Francisco is planning two more academies over the next two years, designed to accelerate the hiring of 250 officers and bring the department up to its current minimum sworn staff level by Summer of 2017, according to the mayor’s office.

San Francisco police officer’s aren’t cheap. The Controller’s Office found SFPD officers are paid an average $174,799 in yearly salary and benefits, the highest pay of any city polled.

Oakland Police Department did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The department’s own 171st academy class just graduated April 3, bringing 35 new officers to the force.

That’s one of the directives Berkeley police commanders gave officers before a protest march last December that led to repeated confrontations between officers and demonstrators.

Berkeley Police Chief Michael Meehan delivered a report on his department’s handling of the protests to the city’s police watchdog commission Wednesday night.

Before the meeting, the head of the Police Review Commission said the body would seek an explanation of what he called an “extremely unfortunate” choice of words.

George Perezvelez, acting chair of the Berkeley Police Review Commission, said he and other panel members will ask Meehan about the directive, first reported Monday in The Daily Californian.

“It’s an unfortunate use of words. If the intent was, as the quote is, to ‘get them running,’ that is not the proper way to handle any demonstration in the city of Berkeley,” Perezvelez said Tuesday.

He said a better approach would have been to “keep [protesters] moving, keep them safe, keep them on the streets, make sure they’re safe, make sure the demonstration keeps moving through the city. … The usage of the words ‘get them running’ gives a much different perspective and definition to the action, and is extremely unfortunate.”

Berkeley police spokeswoman Jenn Coats wrote in an email Thursday that the “get’um running” statement from notes delivered to officers at a pre-event briefing was a “talking point.”

“It references helping spread out those groups to be able to better identify specific individuals that were committing crimes,” she wrote.

The department posted its own report on the December unrest on Tuesday. The document’s conclusion says, in part:

The commanders and officers attempted to do their best to stem the violence and lawlessness that arose during the protests and were not fully satisfied with the outcome. We have no way of knowing what would have happened had the Department applied different strategies and tactics. The Department did many things right over the course of the protests and riots. Through this process we identified many opportunities for improvement. Leaders in the department were instrumental in this process by offering candid critiques, feedback and recommendations. This review’s recommendations will serve to positively impact similar future operations.

Meehan has praised officers’ “professionalism, patience and courage” in the face of what he characterized as an attack on police headquarters on the first night of the protests — Dec. 6, 2014 — and in responding to widespread vandalism the following night. Protest organizers criticized police for what they called an aggressive response that included batons, tear gas and the use of “less-lethal” munitions such as rubber bullets or beanbags.

The protests were called in response to police violence in Ferguson, Missouri, New York City and elsewhere.

In “briefing notes” presented to department members in the hours before the first evening of protest, officers were advised that in handling demonstrators they should aim to, “Get’um running! Stretch the crowd out so they are not a mass, but individuals.”

At the same time, officers were advised, “Hardcore agitators will split up and cause multiple problems. Rapid response to these individuals is critical.”

In the event, what had been a vocal but peaceful protest turned into something of a melee once marchers arrived at Berkeley’s Public Safety Building, where police were massed. Police accounts — backed up by a video included in the Berkeley police report — say bricks and other objects were thrown, and officers responded in short order with tear gas. That set off a long evening of confrontation, complete with repeated volleys of smoke canisters, tear gas and “less-lethal” munitions fired as police moved a crowd of several hundred people south along Telegraph Avenue toward Oakland.

The Daily Cal’s story discloses that Berkeley police came close to exhausting their supply of gas and crowd-control munitions the first night of the protests. The paper published an email from Berkeley police Lt. Dave Frankel requesting supplies of tear gas and less-lethal rounds from nearby law enforcement agencies.

Perezvelez of the Police Review Commission said his review of documents and video from the protests suggests the department’s rules for handling protests need to be improved.

“We think that the general orders are operationally adequate and they’re legally adequate, and they are in accordance to federal and state law,” Perezvelez said. “But they are not broad enough to include the nuances of crowd control and the nuances of use of force.”

Note: This post has been revised to incorporate comments and material from the Berkeley Police Review Commission and Berkeley Police Department.

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/06/09/berkeley-cops-protest-tactic-getum-running/feed0A Lot of Guns on the Table: SFPD Makes Big Bust in ‘Letterman’ Casehttp://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/06/10/a-lot-of-guns-on-the-table-sfpd-makes-big-bust-in-letterman-case
http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/06/10/a-lot-of-guns-on-the-table-sfpd-makes-big-bust-in-letterman-case#commentsThu, 11 Jun 2015 01:27:35 +0000http://ww2.kqed.org/news/?p=10558157San Francisco Police Department sergeants Martin Bandvik and Tigran Antonian thought they’d find a handgun at the end of a two-month robbery investigation that led them to a house on the 100 block of Nursery Way in South San Francisco.

But on June 3, when the sergeants served a search warrant on the house with the San Mateo North County Regional SWAT Team, they found a whole lot more: 22 assault weapons, 12 handguns, two bolt action rifles, two shotguns, hand grenades, bomb making materials, and some 5,000 rounds of ammunition.

‘These are the types of guns that Bayview officers seize off the street every day. Where do these guns come from? I think this may be a potential source.’Bill Braconi, SFPD Lieutenant

“We had no idea it was going to be a cache this big,” Bandvik said. “It makes me feel very good. We’re on the street every day in the Bayview, and our brothers and sisters in the Bayview Police Station that are out there — these are guns that they’re not going to have to deal with now on the street.”

Bandvik and Antonian started tracking the case on April 22, after the first in a series of four robberies in San Francisco’s Bayview, Ingleside and Marina districts.

“One guy came in with a letterman jacket on and did the robbery,” Bandvik said of the incident at a Bayview gas station. “The second guy was in the getaway car. We were able to get some information on that through surveillance video.”

Two days later, the letterman jacket showed up again, this time at a Walgreens robbery in the Marina. Two more robberies followed back in San Francisco’s southeastern neighborhoods, on May 17 and 19.

On May 24, “some very vigilant, sharp-eyed” Bayview patrol officers spotted 56-year-old Homer Mathews and his letterman jacket on Third Street, Bandvik said, and they arrested him.

Then a Northern Station officer contacted Bayview investigators with information tying the getaway vehicle description to a second suspect, 31-year-old Austen Chin.

San Francisco Police Department Chief Greg Suhr addresses reporters June 10 about a large gun and explosives seizure a week before. (Alex Emslie/KQED)

“That’s when we served the search warrant in South San Francisco,” Bandvik said. “He was arrested and the weapons were found.”

SFPD Lt. Bill Braconi said the guns appeared destined for sale in the Bayview.

“Some of the information that we uncovered in the residence indicates that many of these weapons were offered for sale,” he said, “and based on information I can’t divulge at this time, it indicates that some of the recipients of these weapons may have been from the Bayview District.”

He also said MK105 rounds, military-grade ammunition, was recovered in the search.

“They’re about a 10-inch long shell that’s used in a small cannon,” he said.

Braconi said police don’t yet know the intentions surrounding the military weapons or explosives, but he said there’s nothing to indicate a connection to a terrorist plot.

Crime statistics from SF OpenData show 169 weapons-related arrests in the Bayview District since this time last year. San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr said the department’s focus on seizing weapons has had an impact on violent crime.

“We think that that’s a large part of the reason why — although any homicide is one too many — homicides are basically half of what they were in the mid-2000s,” he said. “Gun violence is also down about 50 percent now from what it was in say 2007, 2008. Certainly getting this kind of firepower off the street — the potential for this kind of weaponry, I can’t imagine.”

Braconi said assault weapons are often part of “gun fights that very frequently, all too often ensue in the Bayview.”

“These are the types of guns that Bayview officers seize off the street every day,” he said. “Where do these guns come from? I think this may be a potential source.”

Some of the weaponry San Francisco Police Department investigators seized after serving a search warrant in South San Francisco June 3. (Alex Emslie/KQED)

Police said at least one robbery suspect is still on the loose, and their investigation continues.

Both Mathews and Chin were booked in San Francisco County Jail on felony robbery charges. Mathews was booked on robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery; Chin was booked on robbery and kidnapping for the purpose of robbery. The more serious charges stemmed from the fourth robbery, which appeared to involve an unidentified suspect and Chin, but not Mathews, Bandvik said. He said suspects approached grocery store owners in Ingleside outside their store and forced them inside for the robbery.

Police are coordinating with the San Mateo County district attorney and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on the weapons charges. It has not yet been determined whether Chin and Mathews will be charged federally, Braconi said.

Sgt. Tigran Antonian, who worked the case with Bandvik under Braconi’s supervision, said he was shocked to find the weapons stash.

“It was a good case, good bust,” he said. “We’re happy to have all these guns off the street.”

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/06/10/a-lot-of-guns-on-the-table-sfpd-makes-big-bust-in-letterman-case/feed0RS15438_IMG_2058-qutSan Francisco Police Department Chief Greg Suhr addresses reporters June 10 about a large gun and explosives seizure a week before.RS15442_IMG_2040-qutSome of the weaponry San Francisco Police Department investigators seized after serving a search warrant in South San Francisco June 3.Convicted Former SFPD Officer to Produce Training Video for Departmenthttp://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/06/02/convicted-former-sfpd-officer-to-produce-training-video-for-department
http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/06/02/convicted-former-sfpd-officer-to-produce-training-video-for-department#commentsTue, 02 Jun 2015 23:16:58 +0000http://ww2.kqed.org/news/?p=10548410Updated 10 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 4An image from Henry Hotel security camera footage shows SFPD Officer Arthur Madrid inserting a key into the door of Room 504. Officer Arshad Razzak is directly to Madrid’s right, and Officer Richard Yick is in the foreground. Madrid’s partner, Robert Forenis, is to his left. (Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Defender's Office)

Arshad Razzak’s sentencing for four federal criminal charges was postponed Tuesday for a year to allow the former San Francisco plainclothes narcotics officer to develop training materials for the Police Department.

“This is an opportunity to make some good come out of this, both for the SFPD and for Mr. Razzak,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney John Hemann at Razzak’s sentence status hearing.

Hemann said Razzak’s contribution to SFPD training for both new recruits and experienced officers could help them “avoid some of the pitfalls Mr. Razzak found himself in.”

A federal jury convicted Razzak, 42, in January of conspiracy against civil rights, deprivation of rights under the color of law, and two counts of falsification of records. He and three other Southern District plainclothes officers conspired to illegally search a room at the Henry Hotel, a single-room-occupancy hotel on San Francisco’s Sixth Street, prosecutors said.

The federal criminal charges stemmed from the San Francisco Public Defender’s release of surveillance video from a Dec. 23, 2010, raid of Room 504 at the Henry Hotel.

Matt Gonzalez, chief attorney in the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, was flummoxed by Razzak’s sentencing postponement, and the reason for it.

“The Police Department should be capable of training its officers not to violate the law without the help of a convicted police officer who engaged in that conduct,” he said, adding that the length of the postponement is an insult to the public. “Entire Hollywood movies get made in a shorter time period.”

Razzak’s partner was less-experienced former SFPD Officer Richard Yick, who was acquitted of all charges. Two more plainclothes officers who specialized in auto burglary, Arthur Madrid and Robert Forenis, met Razzak and Yick outside the Henry Hotel to assist in the raid.

Madrid was in the lead of the four officers when they arrived at Room 504, and the video shows him immediately inserting a key into the door. Then all four enter. They found a cache of heroin and needles strewn about the room, and arrested Carlos Hutcherson for possession of approximately 65 grams of heroin.

But to enter the room, officers would have needed a search warrant, or some set of circumstances that created an exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement. Razzak wrote in a police report about the incident that another occupant, Jessica Richmond, consented to a search after she answered a knock at the door. The surveillance video contradicted that account.

Prosecutors gave Madrid immunity in exchange for his testimony in the case. Forenis was never charged. Raul Eric Elias was indicted with Razzak and Yick for his involvement in a separate raid called into question by surveillance video. Elias’ prosecution has been deferred and could eventually be dismissed.

Razzak’s defense attorney, Michael Rains, said his client’s misdeeds were driven not by motivation for personal gain, but by pressure to satisfy a “numbers-driven regime driving officers to produce, produce, produce [arrests].”

Gonzalez said that’s not a consideration afforded to most people facing a prison sentence.

“There are criminal defendants being charged with crimes every day that can talk about the pressures that they have,” he said, “and I just don’t see anybody proposing that they help make training videos so that regular citizens don’t fall prey to the pressures that are out in society. It’s not convincing to me.”

Rains said the SFPD training division was on board with the idea.

“Any video for training purposes that would educate our Police Department on any topic is certainly beneficial,” SFPD spokesman Officer Albie Esparza wrote in an email response. “We never stop learning in life, and enriching our lives/officers/department is a win win for all, including the public by having a better educated police force.”

The department is “working closely” with the U.S. Attorney’s office on the next steps for the video’s production, Esparza wrote, and SFPD is awaiting further direction from prosecutors and the court.

Rains said the training materials would likely focus on something that relates to the trial, “what the video shows, what the report said, and the disparity between the two.”

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg said during Razzak’s sentence status hearing Tuesday that he agreed with prosecutors and Rains that Razzak’s case was very different from another federal corruption trial involving SFPD plainclothes officers convicted of stealing money and property from drug suspects.

But even though he granted the postponement, Seeborg said it shouldn’t “detract from the fact that a jury did convict in this case.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Hemann said federal sentencing guidelines dictate a prison sentence of 41 to 51 months. Rains said a federal probation officer recommended a 32-month sentence, but his actual sentence could be much shorter.

“It depends on what the government feels the extent of his cooperation is,” he said, “and ultimately it’s the judge’s determination.”

This report was updated to include a response from the San Francisco Police Department.

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/06/02/convicted-former-sfpd-officer-to-produce-training-video-for-department/feed0SFPD-400×271An image from Henry Hotel security camera footage shows SFPD Officer Arthur Madrid inserting a key into the door of room 504. Officer Arshad Razzak is directly to Madrid’s right, and Officer Richard Yick is in the foreground. Madrid’s partner, Robert Forenis, is to his left.